It's been a number of years since the word portal has been popular. It's so 1999. But I did run across a cool portal called TheDisneyPortal.com that is, obviously, a Disney portal. The site has a Disney feature, top Disney news as pooled by Google News and an aggregation of various smaller Disney blogs. Finally, the site shows some news from various comment-oriented Disney sites such as JimHillMedia.com.

One cool thing the site does is to rate or rank a number of "unofficial" Disney sites. The following are various Disney categories as rated by TheDisneyPortal.com:

I believe that opinions about Microsoft, Yahoo, Google and Apple are based on prior experiences. Here is how my experience with these four companies has shaped my opinions about them.

MicrosoftI grew up using "IBM-compatible" PC's in 80's and 90's, using Microsoft DOS. Using the PC was cool, mainly because it ran nice business apps like Lotus 1-2-3 and gave me a programming outlet via BASIC and later QuickBASIC. However, despite having 1 meg of RAM (which was a lot back then), in general DOS would only let me use about 1/3 of it in the form of unused conventional memory. Conventional memory was 640K, but DOS and other system applications had to load into it. To make use of my other memory, I had to become an expert editing things like config.sys, himem.sys and autoexec.bat utilizing memory management programs like emm386.exe and variables like devicehigh. For more info, see this nostalgic site Megs O Ram.

The worst thing about this was that the Intel x386 chips were capable of supporting 1 meg of RAM or more without all this fuss, but it was Microsoft's DOS operating system that made using these "IBM-compatible PC's" much more complex to use than necessary. In not updating DOS to make my experience easier, Microsoft gave me the expectation that they do not care about my needs and will not improve their product until many years after the market demands it.

Also, I have had several experiences losing valuable work to the "blue screen of death" caused by the unstable nature of Microsoft's operating systems. I feel sorry for the application developers who must learn how to make their apps more stable on Microsoft systems when the base code they develop should theoretically work. Microsoft is to blame for the lost productivity.

I had similar experiences using earlier versions of Internet Explorer, where it would sometimes take IE a minute to crunch through the cache that IE ladened my PC with. It seems as though the IE caching was meant for internet users who only view 10 pages a year. In short, local caching just didn't work for power users.

So do I really care about Microsoft or MSN? Do I believe Microsoft will ever come out with a product that would cater to my needs when I needed it? Past experience says no. I've always felt that I was "forced" to use Microsoft products.

Yahoo!I love Yahoo, they provide great search and loads of useful content on their site. They are also a key reason why RSS feeds have so many users. However, my gripe with Yahoo is really about GoTo.com, which later became Overture which was then sold to Yahoo. (BTW, Yahoo bought Overture for only about $1.6 billion, which many think was a steal since the majority of Yahoo's revenue now comes from paid search.)

As a webmaster in the "internet bubble" era, I depended on GoTo.com for the majority of my revenue. I also advertised heavily on GoTo.com, but made a living bidding on only $0.01 terms. I know, I was cheap but that's all I could afford being self-financed. As GoTo.com became Overture, they did two things that upset me: (1) Discontinued the affiliate program and (2) Increased minimum advertising bids to $0.05. Thus, I had no revenue and was priced out of being able to advertise. In short, GoTo.com/Overture single-handedly cut my webmaster career short until Google later provided a means for my webmastering rebirth.

Again, I love Yahoo but have ill-feelings toward GoTo.com/Overture. I got slapped by the hand that was feeding me.

GoogleThis one is easy. For more than 5 years, I've used Google since they offer the best search results. That's why Google is the #1 rated search engine by most people, including SquirrelNet.com's Top 20 Search Engines list. As I've grown with Google, I've learned to harness the power of the Google engine through advanced searching when necessary. But beyond searching, I also receive revenue from Google's AdSense program on various sites I run. Thus, besides guiding my internet experience, Google also monetizes my web development efforts.

Interestingly, Google AdSense was launched during the blogging boom, so millions of bloggers signed up. By definition, most bloggers write out of personal motivation and most use AdSense only as a way to recoup part of the minor costs that are incurred in being a blogger. Given Yahoo was caught with their pants down, they have been unable to increase their reach via the blogging community and have given up many millions in revenue.

I like Google, I use Google, and I trust that they won't treat me the same way Yahoo (GoTo.com/Overture) did.

AppleI've had great experiences with my Apple Mini iPod. I'm in an online MBA program and download all the lectures to my iPod to listen to in my car via a cassette adaptor (FM tranmitters don't work in most metro areas). The iPod is miniature in size and easy to use. The iPod is probably why many people like Apple, but to be fair to the people who really LOVE Apple (and I mean LOVE as in Tom Cruise jumping up and down on Oprah's couch saying he's in LOVE), Apple's Macintosh computers have always been very easy to use, offer users a great experience, and allow users to be as creative as they want to be.

Yes, past experiences do play a role in how I think of these companies. That's why I like Google and Apple. They are kind of like good friends to me, are very trustworthy, and care about my needs.